In 2003 or 2004, I needed one or two bungee cords for something. So I went to the dollar store and found a pack of 12 bungee cords for a dollar. So I bought them. I used two bungee cords for the thing I needed bungee cords for, and put the rest in the closet in case I ever needed them. But I have never needed bungee cords since then.
In 2007, I moved. Cleaning out a closet, I found all these bungee cords. I had never used them, I didn't anticipate any circumstances under which I might use them. I asked around quickly if anyone needed any bungee cords, but no one did. So they all got thrown out.
Now I know the most virtuous approach would have been to find a charity that could take bungee cords or post on freecycle or craigslist or something, but frankly I was in the middle of packing and moving and cleaning out my apartment, I didn't have time to do this. And, frankly, I got them at the dollar store. If I need more, I can get more painlessly. They just weren't worth the effort. So 10 perfectly good bungee cords got thrown out.
Life often works that way. The things we keep "just in case" get thrown out when we move or when we need to massively reorganize our closets. But I wonder how many of these things we have just because they came in bulk packages? I wonder how much it would help solve our garbage problem if it were always possible to buy only one thing when you need only one thing?
4 comments:
here is my theory on this: instead of companies just guessing what we want and then us picking from the options that they supply us, we should order things and have them made based on what we said.
Wow, moving is when I use Frecycle the most, for just that reason. I can't deal with throwing stuff out like that.
I have the problem currently with small cucumbers, the kind I call Kirby, but here are called "pickles", although they are not pickled.
In NY they were sold in bins, like most vegetables, where you pick out which ones and how many you want. Here they are sold in packages of 10 or 12. We always end up throwing out 2 or 3 at the end, mushy and moldy.
I always feel incredibly stupid freecycling stuff from the dollar store.
My mother once tried to grow pickling cucumbers, and ended up with way, way too many. Maybe your grocery store has the same problem.
Seeing these kind of posts reminds me of just how technology truly is something we cannot live without in this day and age, and I can say with 99% certainty that we have passed the point of no return in our relationship with technology.
I don't mean this in a bad way, of course! Ethical concerns aside... I just hope that as the price of memory decreases, the possibility of uploading our memories onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It's one of the things I really wish I could encounter in my lifetime.
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